Apple’s event today showcased the new iPhone 5 as expected. The features on the new iPhone 5 are solid and the new form factor is stunning. Yet, what had not been talked about on Wall Street, yet may be a strong boost this upcoming holiday season, are the updated iPod Nano and iPod Touch. All in all, Apple should expect to have their strongest quarter ever into Christmas, which is Apple’s first fiscal quarter in 2013. Details and analysis of the event are highlighted below.

The iPhone 5 form factor now sports a 4” screen (previously, 3.5”) and has been made 18% thinner and 20% lighter. The front casings are still black or white glass, but the backs are brushed silver aluminum or slate anodized aluminum, respectively. As expected, the iPhone 5 will run on the fastest LTE networks and have much faster processing speeds that enable users to load music apps 2.1x faster or images from photo apps 1.7x faster. As expected, Apple introduced a new connector for the iPhone 5 (also for the updated iPods). The upgrades to the camera were not MPs, but faster photo capture, dynamic lighting, panoramic photos and noise cancellation for video.

Several features were lacking, however, on the heels of the announcements by Nokia, Motorola and Samsung over the past 10 days. Apple barely discussed battery life. The iPhone 4S offered 8 hours of 3G talk time, as does this iPhone 5. Battery life was a big improvement amongst the Nokia Lumia 920, Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx HD, and Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and it felt like Apple skirted this issue. Apple did not discuss NFC and the discussion of Passport was an abbreviation of what was said at WWDC. Nokia Lumia 920 chose image stabilization and low lighting to distinguish itself as a “great imaging” and, while Apple did address new camera features, it did not feel like as much of a step up from previous generations as did the Nokia presentation. Apple did not offer wireless charging but, instead, wants Apple users to change chargers. There could be some grumbling on that issue. And Apple devoted time to the construction process of the new iPhone 5 which, most likely, consumers may not appreciate as much as sizzling new features.

If there were any backlash to today’s presentation, it would be because Apple has led us to expect a “wow factor” beyond our wildest dreams and new killer apps over the previous product. That said, the iPhone 5 is a real winner. The form factor takes the best of all previous generations, and it is faster, thinner, lighter and smarter! Siri has learned more, and will be integrated into apps like Open Table and Facebook. And while Apple has not addressed the NFC or the mobile wallet opportunity, Apple does now have 435M iTunes accounts with one-click purchasing which still makes it a heavy-weight contender in mobile payments when it decides to move.

Lastly, as Tim Cook said well (and I’m paraphrasing), Apple does make industry-leading innovative products that are incredible on their own, but what sets Apple apart is that they work so well together. The value of the Ecosystem continues to strengthen with services such as iCloud and AirPlay. Moreover, the iPhone 5 is going to be available for pre-order by Friday, and available by next Friday for purchase in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore, while competitors are slower to get to market. And while the competition set a great stage, Apple, with their ecosystem, is well positioned going into the next quarter. Historically, Apple has unwittingly created such buzz around product releases that consumers held off purchases until the new product comes out. The pattern has developed and intensified over time. For the past three product upgrades, iPhone unit sales have jumped 41%, 66% and 117% as consumers wait to see what is coming out to make a purchase decision. On top of this typical pattern, it is estimated that 30M AT&T and Verizon customers’ contracts will expire in the fourth quarter qualifying them for subsidies on a new iPhone 5 purchase. To date, the largest quarter for iPhones sales was the December 2011 quarter, encompassing the iPhone 4S upgrade, and Apple sold 37M iPhones in that quarter. This holiday quarter could blow that away.

But the event did not end with the iPhone 5. Apple with “music in its DNA” announced improvements in the iTunes store, highlighting a carousel tile display, mini player and built-in iCloud. Many features of iTunes have been simplified including use, playlists and integration into Facebook and Twitter. It is worth noting some facts about iTunes: iTunes offers 26M songs, over 20B songs have been purchased, is available in 63 countries and 66% of iTunes downloads are to mobile devices.

Alongside an improvement in iTunes were upgrades to the iPod Nano and the iPod Touch. The Nano upgrades were stunning with enlarged 2.5” multi-touch screen, new larger volume rocker that plays and pauses music, FM tuner, built-in pedometer, wireless audio streaming, and 30 hours of playback time.

The iPod Touch was a real winner. Apple noted that it is the most popular video game player with 175K games available and 150M players in their Game Center (not bad for a music device). The iPod Touch is going to look a lot like the iPhone 5 on the outside with the new display and aluminum back, and look a lot like the iPhone 4S on the inside with the A5 processor. It will sport 7x faster graphics (catnip, I expect, for gamers), Siri, panorama 5MP camera, and available in 5 colors with matching wrist strap. The pricing for the iPod Touch was at the same price points as its predecessor.

For both the iPod Nano and the iPod Touch, the upgrades were significant enough to entice demand and likely to prove very popular this holiday season.

Lastly, Apple finally decided it should be involved in its own accessories and created its own EarPods as a stand-alone accessory. To date, 600M earbuds have been shipped with Apple products, and the EarPods will be shipped with the new iPhone5, iPod Nano and iPod Touch as well as available for purchase immediately. Apple noted the three years of research that went into the EarPods. One expects the margins on EarPods to be strong, and sales to be robust as a nice add-on accessory for those not yet ready to upgrade.

Bonus Tidbits from the event:

Retail: 380 stores currently open in 12 countries. The thirteenth country will debut on Friday with Sweden joining the lineup.

Mac: Mountain Lion has sold 7M copies since July, fastest ramp of the OS X releases to date.

MacBooks: For the past three months, MacBooks achieved 27% market share in the US, making it top dog. Sales have increased 15% y/y compared to 2% for the PC industry overall.

iPads: Similarly, are outselling the PC industry. 17M were sold last quarter which is more than any PC manufacturer sold in its respective product line. Last year, iPads had 62% market share, and that grew to 68% in the past quarter. iPads accounted for 91% of tablet web traffic, urging Tim Cook to pose the question, “what are the other tablets doing?”